adopted a cat recently who was a “carrier case”. She essentially spent five years in a carrier. When we brought her home, she jumped face first into a mirror. These stories tug on peoples heart strings, but it is peanuts compared to what equally emotionally intelligent pigs and cows go through every day all day.

That said, I’m not sure I follow one aspect of the logic. If hunters who hunt game made it seem not so black and white, wouldnt that only apply to meat that was… hunted? And not bacon from a super market from a factory farm? I dont eat beef or pork but if I know it was hunted, and the animal was free to roam up until the point of death, I have no issue with that either. But that has nothing to do with caging animals for years. I say eat cats, dogs, pigs, cows, and whatever else — so long as they had the ability to be free until they were slaughtered. The expression “But dogs are pets” doesn’t magically change the central nervous system of a pig. It still wants mercy, and feels the same way your pet would feel at a factory farm.